Okay - I'll admit, even though I don't generally buy new fabric and I'm steadily producing a few quilts each year from stash, it has grown from "hardly anything" to "more than I can reasonably handle without some changes" and I sat myself down today for a serious chat about how my approach to quilting is going to need to change to adapt to my new reality. I saw two big issues:
1) When I had very little fabric, it made sense to save little bits so that I could put those little bits together to make quilts. 1-7/8" HSTs can make lovely patterns and an hourglass quilt I made mid-pandemic is still one of my favourites. I still love working with little bits but they were starting to crowd me out (and stress me out) and the variety of projects that have led to those little bits means they don't always want to play together.
2) Even tinier bits came in handy when I found I needed a pincushion and I made a little pillow sort of thing and stuffed it with those tiny bits but I now have two pincushions and that crafted one has been tucked away somewhere (lost) because it really wasn't great. I don't make stuffed animals and can't imagine what else I would really want to use those tiny bits for.
So...
Today I went through three bags of "bits" (that's the official term I labelled those containers with) and fed two boxes (as in the picture) to my compost worms. I have kept a small box of scraps that could be turned into hourglasses or other HST projects and a small bag of strings but nothing smaller than a 1-7/8" HST or 1" wide string. There is another large box of bits that I have an idea for but if the idea doesn't work out within the next couple of days, it's going to the worms as well (after a little break - they're slow quilters!) It's small potatoes, I know, and there are more bags and boxes to go through but it feels good not to see the one big duvet bag of "bits" any more.
This is part of a reorganization project and might have fit better into the What are we organizing today? thread but this thread is home and I didn't think it was too far a stretch to fit it in here. :-)